Sometimes, shopping can be an exploration and discovery process. For example, sometimes, a person may go shopping to find a present for a friend or relative. Or a person may go shopping to find something special for themselves. Sometimes, shoppers buy things that others, such as, for example, sales persons, convince the shopper that they need or want the item.
In order for exploration and discovery shopping to be successful, a shopper may need to observe a multitude of products that are available for purchase. Unless a particular shopper has an opportunity to shop without time constraints, the number of products available for sale, and the diversity of locations at which products are available for sale; could present an overwhelming number of choices for a shopper. Moreover, faced with what a particular shopper may consider to be an overwhelming number of choices, the particular shopper may fall short of selecting a product that ideally suits them or the person for whom they are shopping. For example, a shopper searching for a gift that would satisfy a particular recipient might feel overwhelmed with the choices of gifts that might be available.
When faced with what may seem to be an overwhelming number of choices of products to explore, some shoppers may value the advice of others. For example, a man shopping for his wife's birthday gift, may seek the advice of a sales person that the man perceives as possibly having the same style, age, or other characteristic as the man's wife.
Some people, then, may be perceived by others as having both interests common to either the purchaser, or in the case of a gift, common to the gift recipient, and as also having some skill in picking product, or some knowledge about certain types of products. That is, some people may be perceived by others as being talented at picking unique and especially pleasing products.
Sometimes the person perceived as being either talented at picking pleasing products, or as having knowledge about certain types of products, and/or as having interests common to the shopper, or in the case of a gift, to the gift recipient, may not be a salesperson, but another shopper or consumer. For example, a man searching for a gift for his wife might ask a fellow woman shopper their opinion about certain products. As another example of a perceived expertise of a fellow shopper, a father shopping for a gift for a son or daughter that enjoys surfing might find it helpful to know of surfing related products that a particular fellow shopper in a surfing store finds interesting if the fellow shopper is perceived by the father as having some level of expertise and/or experience in selecting such products.
Sometimes a fellow shopper may be perceived as an expert shopper by a primary shopper who perceives the fellow shopper as having some level of expertise and/or experience in picking products of the type in which the primary shopper themselves is interested, and/or as sharing a strong affinity for the primary shopper's particular tastes and/or interests; or in the case of a gift, a fellow shopper may be perceived as an expert shopper by a primary shopper who perceives the fellow shopper as having some level of expertise and/or experience in picking products of the type in which the anticipated gift recipient is interested, and/or as sharing a strong affinity for the anticipated gift recipient's particular tastes and/or interests.
The experience of a perceived expert shopper may be of special interest to a primary shopper when a multitude of variables and considerations may be involved in selecting a particular product of a type of product for which a particular primary shopper may be shopping. Unless a particular primary shopper has an opportunity to research the multitude of variables and considerations, the particular primary shopper may be overwhelmed with the depth of research perceived by the particular primary shopper as being needed to make an intelligent choice. For example, a particular primary shopper that is in need of a new computer may feel overwhelmed with the amount of information the particular primary shopper perceives would be necessary to master before making an intelligent choice as to a new computer.
Such a primary shopper may perceive certain people as being especially knowledgeable about a particular type or class of product. For example, a particular computer consultant may be considered by a particular primary shopper as being up-to-date and in-the-know about computer hardware and software available in the market. The particular primary shopper in need of selecting a new computer, and who feels overwhelmed with the extent of research the particular primary shopper perceives as necessary to make an intelligent choice, may find it useful to learn of a particular computer consultant's opinions as to favorite computer picks in the marketplace.
Shoppers or consumers that are willing to share information about products that they may have purchased, pick, or otherwise like, are sometimes referred to herein as “curators.”
The Internet has, in some ways, compounded the problem of exploring and discovering products. Before the Internet, a person typically only had to consider the choices of products available at local stores and malls. But the Internet has made available the possibility of exploring and discovering a world of products that might not previously have been accessible to many shoppers.
In serving the exploration and discovery nature of shopping, physical shopping malls feature stores; the stores in a mall are sometimes general merchandise stores that carry a variety of products, or, in the case of boutiques, are organized around some pre-established particular theme. For example, there are cookware stores that offer a variety of products related to cooking; there are youth clothing stores that are directed to offering clothes of a particular type and style genre; there are jewelry stores; there are shoe stores; there are leather goods stores; the list goes on and on.
Similar to physical stores, “online stores” and “online boutiques” have offered products directed to a pre-established particular theme. Online stores, similar to physical stores, may supply and ship the products they offer online.
Similar to physical shopping malls, some “online malls” feature “online stores” and/or “online boutiques” of products.
Similar to physical stores, an “online store,” or an “online boutique,” may cultivate a particular shopping/buying audience, and may, therefore, cultivate a particular supply and/or inventory of products to serve their respective shopping/buying audience.
Some Internet shoppers may not be familiar with, or may not want to rely on, a particular “online boutique's” selection of products. Rather, some Internet shoppers may prefer to explore a more diverse set of products.
The Internet, because of its massive breadth, can be searched, to locate a multitude of products. However, such searches may result in a serendipitous presentation of an overwhelming number of products.
Some way is needed to organize information about products, and present products to online shoppers in a way that serves the particular online shopper's desire to explore and discover products. Further, a way is needed to provide online shoppers with an effective way to explore products in a vendor-neutral, vendor-independent, inventory-independent manner; once a product is found that is to the shopper's liking, a way is needed to send the shopper to one or more places, such as, for example, online stores, that have the product available.
Some online sources have attempted to organize information about products, and provide ratings of products. However, for various reasons, including among others, those described briefly below, the product exploration and discovery processes offered by others has fallen short.
One issue that complicates organizing information and ratings about products, is that there may exist many vendor-specific views of what may appear to a shopping consumer (sometimes referred to herein as a “shopper”) wanting to view ratings about a product, to be a single “product.” For example, a single vendor may use any one of various coding schemes to represent product items for purposes of stock keeping and order-taking and -fulfillment. For example, some vendors may self-assign an internal number for stock-keeping and order-taking and -fulfillment. Such vendor-assigned (vendor-specific), internal stock-keeping codes are often referred to as an SKU (a Stock-Keeping Unit code). Vendor-specific SKU coding schemes are often structured so that each item that must be stocked and for which shoppers may submit an order are assigned a number that is unique within the vendor's own system.
Other vendors may use one or more “universal” coding schemes, such as UPC (Universal Product Code) codes, ISBN (International Standard Book Number (for books)) codes, ISSN (International Standard Serial Number (for magazines)) codes, and the like, as their own SKU.
Still other vendors may use manufacturer ID and model number as their own SKU.
Yet other vendors may use some combination of the above-mentioned coding schemes.
One result of the above-described vendor-specific schemes for coding various product items is that one vendor's SKU for a particular stocked item may be completely different than another vendor's SKU for the exact same item. For example, for a particular brand name (EXAMPLE BRAND) and type (retractable ball-point) of pen, a particular office supply store (Example Vendor 1) may use an internally assigned code of “X” to identify blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens. The same office supply store may use an internally assigned code of “Y” to identify black-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens.
Yet another office supply store (Example Vendor 2) may use an internally assigned code of “A” to identify blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens may use an internally assigned code of “B” to identify black-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens.
The above-outlined EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pen example illustrates that across various vendor-specific coding schemes for identifying products, the same product, e.g., EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens, could appear to be four separate products, e.g., blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens (Example Vendor 1, SKU X), blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens (Example Vendor 2, SKU A), black-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens (Example Vendor 1, SKU Y) and black-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pens (Example Vendor 2, SKU B).
It will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art that the above-outlined example is illustrative and non-limiting. Various additional types of variations, including, for example, packaging (single pen, package of six (6) pens, package of twelve (12) pens, etc.) may, for stock-keeping purposes for example, be separately identified by a vendor.
As compared to a vendor's need for stock-keeping, a shopper wanting to review ratings for a product, for example, retractable ball-point pens, may consider numerous variations, for example, ink color, packaging, and the like, to not be relevant to a rating of the product.
However, if ratings were kept according to individual vendor-assigned SKU's, such as, for example, by someone who purchased a particular item from a vendor, then as can be seen from the above-outlined example, a rating by someone that purchased a black-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pen from Example Vendor 1 could appear separately from a rating by someone that purchased a blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pen from Example Vendor 1; a rating by someone that purchased a blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pen from Example Vendor 1 could appear separately from a rating by someone that purchased a blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND, retractable ball-point pen from Example Vendor 2.
A shopper wanting to review ratings for retractable ball-point pens may consider the color ink, packaging, and other variations to be irrelevant to the shopper's assessment whether to buy EXAMPLE BRAND retractable ball-point pens, as compared to other brand retractable ball-point pens. Yet further, a shopper wanting to review ratings for retractable ball-point pens may consider the vendor that offers such pens to be irrelevant to ratings of such pens.
Even so, ratings are sometimes presented on a particular vendor's website according to the particular item purchased by a rating consumer. For example, on some vendor websites, a vendor may present ratings and/or comments (sometimes, collectively referred to herein as critiques, or simply as ratings) by customers about items sold through the vendor's website. The ratings and/or comments, for example, may be collected only from customers that have purchased the relevant product from the vendor. Typically, the ratings and/or comments by a purchasing customer for a particular purchased item are presented on, or in association with, a page describing the particular item that the customer purchased. The ratings of items purchased by customers of the vendor are viewable by navigating to the vendor's own website. In many cases, ratings are only available on the vendor's website for items sold by the vendor. In many cases, no comparison of ratings of the same item purchased from other vendors is provided at the vendor's website.
Bloggers may publish ratings and/or comments about an item that the blogger has purchased or is otherwise familiar with on their own blog. Some blogs may provide an original image of an item that the blogger is rating or evaluating. Other blogs may use a third party website, such as, for example, FLICKR.COM, to host their image(s) and place what is known as a “widget” on their blog to retrieve content from the image hosting site. Still other blogs may provide a link to a webpage that presents an image of an item that the blogger is rating or evaluating. Or, yet further, a blog could use a combination of the above-mentioned methods of providing images for blog viewers. For example, a blogger rating an example item 1 may provide an original photo of a particular specimen of example item 1, may also provide a FLICKR™ “widget” for retrieving content hosted on the FLICKR.COM website, and may yet further provide a link to a particular vendor's website that displays one or more images of the item as well as product description text and pricing information. A rating about a product published by a blogger that link to a particular vendor's website does not provide any means for comparing other vendors' offerings of the same product.
There are websites that might be called collaborative shopping sites. For example, YAHOO!® offers a shopping community called YAHOO!® SHOPOSPHERE that provides shoppers with the ability to enter “Pick Lists” that include links to websites that provide information about an item and/or offer the item for sale. Many times, links to websites, such as vendor websites, that provide information about an item and/or offer the item for sale do not provide any means to compare the offer by others for sale of the same product.
One problem with the various above-described rating processes is that a consumer's rating that links to a particular webpage provides a rating of whatever basis of rating is provided at that particular webpage. That is, such a rating and link relates to a webpage. If the webpage is associated with only a particular variation of a product, then the rating relates to that particular variation, as compared to a broader view of the product. The following example is illustrative.
A first consumer uses an illustrative example rating website to rate a paperback edition of a particular Example Title and lists a link to a first vendor's webpage that displays an image of the paperback edition of the particular Example Title. Because of the nature of the subject matter, the first consumer's rating is directed to a rating of the content of the particular Example Title and does not relate to the fact that the rated item was a paperback edition as compared to another type of edition of the particular Example Title.
A second consumer uses the same illustrative example rating website to rate a hard cover edition of the same Example Title and lists a link to a second vendor's webpage that displays an image of the hardback edition of the same particular Example Title. Because of the nature of the subject matter, the second consumer's rating is directed to a rating of the content of the particular Example Title and does not relate to the fact that the rated item was a hard cover edition as compared to another type of edition of the particular Example Title.
Even though both the first consumer's rating and the second consumer's rating are directed to the subject matter of the Example Title and not the nature of the variation of the particular item rated, the illustrative example rating website represents the two ratings separately. A shopper uses the illustrative example rating website to search for ratings about the particular Example Title. Instead of returning a single product view to the searching shopper, the search results of the illustrative example rating website report a separate rating for the paperback, and a separate rating for the hardback.
Some way is needed to provide shopping users with the ability to explore and discover products in a vendor-neutral, variation-neutral way.
Further, even as to shoppers, a shopper wanting to review ratings for a “product” may have a very different view of what constitutes a “product” as compared to a shopper that is ready to purchase the product and wants to find a particular variation (e.g., a shopper may want to buy a blue-ink EXAMPLE BRAND retractable ball-point pen as compared to a black-ink EXAMPLE BRAND retractable ball-point pen). Accordingly, some way is needed to direct a shopping user of a “product” rating to vendors that offer for sale vendor-specific stock-keeping units that would be consistent with the shopping user's preferred variation.